[PVRCNC] PVRC/NC East Chapter- February 7th Meeting Minutes

[W4KAZ]

Despite the effects of 807 consumption, some of the enclosed actually 
seems to have occurred.  (I had AA4NC log-check:  21 QSOS's and only 18 
busted.  Thats better than my CW UBNs!)

73 de w4kaz el escribano inexacto


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PVRCNC-East Chapter - February Meeting Notes
February 7th, 2008, Manchester's, Raleigh, NC, USA.

We had another full room for the February meeting of the NC East chapter 
of the PVRC. Twenty-one members were in attendance. Keeping his promise 
to have the trains run on time, AA4NC exhibited newfound prowess with 
his water-glass CW sounder, cutting piercingly through the high 
Ess-Ess-Bee style QRM level. He even got K4QPL's attention, despite 'QPL 
being caught in mid story telling mode.
(No RTTY was observed in the room, despite the coming RTTY 'test.)

AA4NC announced that KA1ARB had agreed to fill in as meeting moderator 
in the event of an absence of AA4NC, and that 'ARB would also be 
coordinating future meeting programs. Will also announced KA1ARB's plan 
to begin a long term project involving documenting member's stations, 
with the intent of spreading good ideas around visually. AA4NC then 
outlined his anticipated meeting agenda for future meetings as: 
Intro/Business, Member Reports, Paper Contest(when available), and 
ending with the Program(when available). As always, any special 
circumstances will be dealt with as they occur, at the Chairman's 
discretion.

Even though the Scribe had cunningly delayed ordering food to keep his 
crayon/quill hand freed, AA4NC launched the group into the 'Around the 
Table' reports anyway. The accuracy of this enclosed documentation of 
these proceedings is of course still in question due to the presence of 
an 807 that was 75% empty, spotted immediately in front of the Scribe.

Around the Table - Member Reports

NT4D, Jay: Jay was the first(of many that night) to comment on the great 
conditions during the CQ 160 contest. He was happy to nab over 35 
countries during the test, and enjoyed the pileups.

K1ZW, Larry: Larry has been experiencing some problems getting his 
software configured for the RTTY contests. He also related debugging an 
unusual problem in his shack. His radio had a low output, on the order 
of 60 to 70 watts rather than the expected 100. A tip from a newsgroup 
list pointed him to checking voltage levels, but he found that his power 
supply appeared to be providing the proper voltage levels, even under 
load. A bit more investigation turned up the source of the problem. It 
was indeed a problem of low voltage at the radio, but its cause was the 
fuses in the OEM power cord. The fuses had become low value resistors, 
dropping the voltage enough to cause low output on the radio. After 
removing the bad fuses by re-routing through a fuse power strip, the 
problem was resolved.

AL4T(ne KM5MM), Brad: Brad currently has a lot of irons in the fire. He 
will soon be completing his service in the United States Army and be 
transitioning from "Bradley D. Hedges, Sergeant First Class, Infantry, 
82d Airborne Division" to "Bradley D. Hedges, Sergeant First Class, 
Infantry, 82d Airborne Division, Retired". He's currently looking at 
mustering out in Oklahoma, where their house hunting has turned up 
several 'antenna farm friendly' possibilities for he and his family. 
This will possibly be his last meeting before a move, but it is possible 
he may make one more. Faced with the prospect of contesting from the 
upper edge of five-land in the great plains, he's applied for the 
callsign "KM5MM", suitable for both CW and Ess-Ess-Bee.(Brad's KM5MM 
application was granted as of this writing, ed., W4KAZ)

N1YXU, Laurie: Laurie reported that she is still being worked to death 
as ground crew, but she noted that she enjoyed hosting W0UCE over during 
the CQ 160, as he and Bruce seemed to have a great time operating the 
good 160m conditions.

N1LN, Bruce: Bruce enjoyed operating the CQ 160 with W0UCE. He was a 
little surprised at how well his inverted-vee seemed to play on the 
bands, and got results that were better than he expected. He operated 
the CW Sprint, nabbing a best ever 272 Q's. He also reported that he had 
fallen victim to K4TMC's January K3 'marketing program', and had placed 
an order for an Elecraft K3. K4TMC maintains that he will NOT be 
receiving a commission from Elecraft(but it sure would be nice...).

NX9T, Jeff: Jeff missed the SSB NAQP while traveling, but was able to 
have a bit of fun during the CQ 160. He's planning to operate the SSB 
Sprint.

N4TL, Tom: Tom operated the CQ 160 in an inverted-L that had no radials. 
He knew that conditions were good because he had a pleasant surprise at 
the results using a compromise antenna.

K4WES, Wes: Wes operated the NAQP SSB as part of 'TEAM VoxLox".

K2AV, Guy: Guy had not been very active, but did find the time to attack 
a stack of backlog mods for his K2. So he's been in the process of 
tearing the K2 apart and bringing it up to date with all of the newest 
improvements.

AA4NC, Will: Will used the NAQP's as an opportunity to test out his SO2R 
set up, and complained about K4QPL causing his station to 'blow up'. It 
turns out the 'blowing up' was unrelated to 'QPL, but rather to a 
software/hardware conflict caused by a print job active on the computer. 
It seems the print task was flipping a setting which caused his 
DXDoubler to switch radios in a rather frustrating way - like in the 
middle of a QSO. The problem was resolved when the computer was given 
treatment equivalent to the fabled "Windoze" three finger 
salute(control-alt-delete).

N4CW, Bert: Bert 'dabbled' in the CQ 160, NAQP, and Sprint. He announced 
the upcoming RTTY WPX and the fast approaching ARRL DX CW.

K4CIA, Bill: Bill related having also been lured in by the K4TMC 
marketing scheme, and also demanded kickback from K4TMC for the mythical 
Elecraft 'commission'. K4TMC mythically promised a mythical payment when 
he mythically received the mythical commission. Bill reported having 
passed on ownership of a very real IC-765 to a very willing 
Grasshopper(N4YDU). On the operating front, Bill, always looking for a 
challenge, decided that operating CQ160 QRP was far too easy. So 
instead, he did his receiving on the second and third harmonics, passing 
on said observations of frequency and callsign in the normal manner. He 
reports receiving a 'wide variety' of responses to these signal reports, 
some positive and some not so positive.

K4TMC, Henry: Henry's report began with his meal order - "Burger!". 
Henry made a few QSO's during the NAQP, and has a 160m antenna in the 
works in order to try the CQ 160 SSB. He will NOT be paid commissions 
from Elecraft!

W4TMO, Jim: Jim hoisted a spanking new 'L' for the CQ 160 contest and 
was happy with the 200+ Qso's and couple of countries he was able to bag 
during the contest. The experimented with operating the CW Sprint. He 
discovered the hard way that it is best to check the info sent by the 
F-keys BEFORE the contest... :o

KE4GY, Frank: Frank's been too busy with work and a trip to NYC to get 
in any radio time.

KI4ZWQ and KI4GUO, Jeanne and Jordan: Jeanne and Jordan report operating 
the NAQP SSB as a multi with K4CZ. This was Jeanne's first contest. They 
gathered in 325 Q's, having fun together in the contest.

K4CZ, Barry: Barry is happy that Jeanne and Jordan had fun operating the 
NAQP. He noted Jeanne and Jordan made the bulk of the QSO's, and that 
the rate dropped perceptibly when he got behind the mike. :o He was 
somewhat mollified by reaching a personal best in the RTTY Round-up, 
breaking the 1000 QSO barrier for the first time ever. He operated the 
CQ 160 briefly, but is sorry he mostly missed the good band conditions.

K4QPL, Jim: Jim was able to work a few DX in the CQ 160, noting the good 
conditions. He had fun in the NAQP as his time allowed. Jim's next 'big 
deal' is the upcoming ARRL DX CW at N4AF. He also expects to make a stab 
at operating in the NC QSO Party from Pender county. Jim gave a short 
preview of the March program, a discussion of his "Altoids SO2R QPL 
Box", which is a project Jim is working on for his station. He's 
designing the box to handle some of the radio switching based on using N1MM.

W4MY, Marty: Marty says 'there's "No 'A'"'! Apparently his callsign is 
bedeviling many ops who are expecting to copy "W4MYA". Marty will be 
mobile again during the NC QSO Party, expecting company from Daniel, who 
is now W4ALI. He's expecting there to be a friendly rivalry with NY4N 
for this years NC bragging rights in the mobile category, as the 2007 
margin of victory was a mere 500 points, less than 1 percent.

N4YDU, Nathan: Nate was excited about this acquisition of 'CIA's IC-765, 
noting that it was a 'keeper'. Nate operated both NAQP's and had an 
interesting difference of opinion regarding frequency usage during CQ 
160. He's recently put up a half square for 40m and a bi-square for 20m, 
and expects to make a big run at ARRL DX CW.

W4KAZ, el Escribano Inexacto: Kaz noted that Jose', EA5DFV, has said 
that he will be hunting NC stations on 40m SSB, if anyone happens to 
drop down below 7200kc during the QSOP. His country now has privileges 
up to 7200kc. 'KAZ tried with mixed success to generate some interest in 
NAQP teams, and noted that Team VoxLox had fun in the NAQP SSB, however 
Team LoxVox suffered from a 'last minute change of heart'. 'KAZ had no 
joy in CQ160, despite the excellent conditions on the band, just not 
having fun with it. (NAQP withdrawal?)

Paper Contest:
Despite N4TL's threats to tax the assembled gray matter more rigorously, 
this month's paper contest resulted in an unusually large number of high 
scoring entries. There was a tie for first place, adjudicated to the 
winner, K2AV, on the basis of being the "first-est with the most-est"(it 
is a sprint after all...). Loser of the tiebreaker, W4KAZ was left to 
pound sand and commiserate over his ill timed bathroom break(the evils 
of 807's!), again giving credence to contesting's tell-me-three-times 
mantra for success, "Butt in chair, Butt in chair, Butt in chair!".

Program
The evening's program was video from the K7C Kure Island DXpedition.

Next meeting of the NC-East chapter is March 6th.

73, Keith W4KAZ

Scribe's DISCLAIMER!  The accuracy of these notations is suspect, and 
creative license has been applied where the scribe's notes are 
incomplete, his memory is fragmented, or when reality was just less 
interesting. Perception IS Reality. Corrections to the permanent record 
will be made upon request, if the scribe is reminded often enough to 
make the corrections.

Updated 02/11/2008, W4KAZ, El Escribano Inexacto